wise craft

week two of get your paint on

My second week's assignment for Get Your Paint On was completed on Sunday, a stylized painting of my Sunshine Medallions Quilt Pattern.

Like the first painting I did from last week, I painted this using a combination of gouache and acrylic on an artist's panel (I learned these need a lot of paint, they really soak it up). I changed the patterning a little bit from the original quilt design, to experiment with a new color placement. I worked on what Lisa talked about in class, adding and adding layer upon layer of paint. I love that idea and I must say, she is right, good things happen in those layers and it creates a lot of visual depth. This one almost felt like an optical illusion when I was done.

It was never my intention to paint quilts, but once I got started, I seemed to be excited by the idea, I thought why not? The quilts I make, as I'm sure are the ones you make, are so very special to me. I do a lot of contemplating over fabric choices, colors, how they go together, why they work together, or what is missing. Maybe that is why this idea feels so natural for me. I won't say easy, I worked longer than I ever expected I would on both week's paintings, but I am enjoying the whole process of learning a new medium.

Last week my friend Christiane and I went to see the Gauguin & Polynesia exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. We were both surprised by the colors of the Polynesian series he did, the colors, although vivid, were not as bright as I envisioned they'd be. Interestingly though, once he moved back home to Brittany, he continued to paint the Polynesian scenery and people as he remembered them. The colors in his memory must have been more vivid. Those pieces had a vibrancy to them I didn't see in the earlier ones, as if the paintings were his way of going back in his mind to a place he wanted to be.

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Lastly, tomorrow is a new month, and that means new inspiration wallpaper (I've been faithful to my plan of getting a new one up on the first of the month so far, yay! see the other months here), and a question for your crocheters, so stop back by then.

creatively expanding

Ta da! My first painting for the Get Your Paint On course (actually, my second, but the first one really felt like a practice run, to play with my new gouache paints).

I started with my friendship bracelet quilt for my inspiration-

I'm having so much fun with this class! Most of the time, I can't justify taking the time to do things like this, and will talk myself out of it (I can't put the time it deserves into it, it will take away from things I need to get done each day, yadda yadda yadda...) but now that so much of the work on the book is behind me, I have decided to make it a priority to just jump in and try some new things while I have a little time to do it. And this is totally new, I have never done much painting. But I've always wanted to. I decided to take this class literally within 2 seconds of finding out about it, worried if I thought about it too much, I wouldn't do it. Each day since the class started, I have made an effort to devote some thoughtful time to the assignments. I don't know if its something I'll do more of after the class is over, I don't think it matters. My logical mind should have told me that this kind of process helps me in all the areas of my own creative pursuits.

 

summer break's art and leisure

As we were getting ready for the coming week (a week of both kids back to school), I was glancing around at the "work" that happened here at home, when my kids got down to the busy business of doing "nothing". My kids are just like most kids- they would love to do minecraft, or play wii, or watch Dr. Who all day, and are usually pretty bummed (and at times indignant) that they can't. I try to remember that they need time and space to figure out what to do on their own. Suddenly the productivity comes from out of the woodwork.

Emma spent some time listening to music and painting down in the studio-

my week in instagram

I am addicted to Instagram. Have you tried it? I love the immediacy of it. The snap a photo with few words aspect, its addictive. I know a lot of folks are unhappy about Facebook acquiring Instagram (even though apparently the company has never made any money and weren't ever quite sure how they would make money). I don't love the idea myself, but I've always had a suspicion that all of these companies make their money from the collection of data from their users (us) how we each use our account. Data equals money. And I'm talking about pinterest, facebook, and twitter. If they would like to market to me, fine, its the price I pay, and I don't have to look.

Anyway, back to Instagram. I find that I snap many pictures with my phone and post to instagram, many that I probably wouldn't take otherwise with my big black camera. My Iphone 4s takes amazing photos, I hardly need to these days, the phone photos just blow me away. Mainly I'm just happy that these moments get captured. Of course, they could get captured the same by snapping a picture and posting it onto facebook, but for whatever reason I prefer instagram (which, by the way, my instagram feed goes directly to the wise craft facebook page).

All of these pictures were taken by my phone and put up on instagram this week.

 

Today's crochet assembly-

 

labels on things-

 

The wall above my desk-

 

Gracie finding respite from 10 year old boys in my studio-

 

Ian and me at the Science Center-

 

My owl embroidery progress-

 

One of Emma's scupley clay birds found while cleaning the studio-

You can follow my instagram updates here.

Its been two weeks of kids home from school for Spring Break (Emma's break was last week, Ian's was this week). Work and productivity always take a bit of a backseat when that happens. Even though we were bummed that the kids had different breaks this year (no big spring break trip to Florida like usual), I have to admit I've really enjoyed having some individual time with each of them. They each had a week with a little down time, and a little fun. That's good.

Although...

I am looking forward to next week. I am going to see the Gauguin & Polynesia exhibit at the SAM, I am going to browse secondhand shops without needing to make deals with my offspring involving rewards for letting me go there.

I know you hear me...

Oh! And I'm still posting over at habit through the month of April. Stop by!

Have a great weekend!

Blair

 

updated wise craft!

The blog has been dusted off and updated! After seven years of blogging, there's loads of content, crafts, quilts, etc embedded in here, it really needed some serious attention. I have had our Story Trading designer extraordinaire Rebekah do up some fancy graphics for me to make it all look pretty. (She whips these things out like I eat potato chips.)

Please notice the little rounded corners of the blog banner.

I did that myself.

And I'm not going to tell you how long it took.

If you are reading in a feed reader, click on over. There are new sections for DIY projects, crochet how-to's, a page for my upcoming book, my ravelry page, the wise craft facebook page, my twitter feed, my instagram photos, a page for quilts, pinterest, home tours, my shop, and who knows what else is on those sidebars, I've splashed myself all over the place!

Thank you for reading and supporting this space. Good things to come!!

add a metallic stripe

 

(Prints at top and bottom are both from Lisa Congdon, damn fine day print from the SIBLING shop- Courtney posted an image of this print on Instagram a week ago and I fell in love with it.)

I am cleaning and clearing the studio today and decided to change up the wall above the fireplace. Even though I do love the print that was up there, I tend to change up the walls pretty regularly around the house. This is a simple project I did last year, but never talked much. Taking thrift store, mismatched wooden frames of various sizes and unifying them with color and a metallic stripe. Once the base coat of paint is completely dry (I spray painted these with a few coats of white and let them dry overnite), I taped off a 2" wide space on each of them using painter's blue tape, then sprayed metallic inside the stripe (two coats). I intentionally didn't put the stripe going exactly through the middle of the frames. The idea being, hang them by lining up the stripe, not the frame. These three frames are all different sizes, and I love the way it creates a unified look.

Another way to do these is to hang them tighter together, which I might actually do. I've got two smaller frames with the same stripe on them, but I'll need to figure out what to put in them.

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Thank you all for the suggestions on the owl needlepoint about starting closer to the owl, rather than trying to fill the background one long row by one long row. I tried this last night and maybe its all smoke and mirrors, but I felt so much more productive!

Ok, back to cleaning the studio!

air plant terrarium

Last week, when Emma and I were out shopping for my new Clematis Arandii vine (thank you Melissa and Instagram folks for helping me ID it!), I picked up a simple glass globe and some air plants for the kitchen window.

Such a simple project, and I do love things that hang from the ceiling. I've seen tons of these glass globes on etsy, in all different shapes and sizes.

I hung mine with neon pink nylon cord I had (which I think I purchased at Lowe's). If I were buying cord, I may have bought some a bit thicker, but I loved that I could use what I had. I tied a a hangman's noose at the top of the globe, easy and secure.

I took some phone photos to show how I did it.

channeling my inner jonathan adler

I love Jonathan Adler needlepoint pillows and would have a whole couch full of them if I could afford them.

Or would I?

I was trolling around ebay the other night and came across this beauty, which I quickly snatched up for $24.

A vintage, pre-worked needlepoint canvas owl. He (or she) is so awesome. I have to work the background (the owl is pre-worked, the background is unworked). I'm using cream yarn to finish it.

I think it will be going in our front room as a pillow.

I haven't done any needlepoint since 1985, when I was in college. Now I remember why I stopped. I forgot how long it takes. Or maybe I'm just less patient now.

I'm giving myself 2 weeks.

What happens after 2 weeks if I'm not done? I don't know. But 2 weeks. That's it.

a full heart and a new family heirloom

Thank you all so very much for the positive and encouraging words following yesterday's post. My phone was vibrating and dinging all day from folks on the blog, on twitter, on facebook, everywhere. Thank you so so much. It feels so good to finally be able to tell you all about it! I will let you know all the details as they unfold.

 

For my recent birthday (I'm starting to downplay these on the blog, can you tell?), Peter surprised me with something I've wanted for years. Now I have my very own Philippe Starck Atilla, who is positioned in the dining room, looking at the door we come in through each day, grinning his gnomey grin, ready and willing to hold up whatever it is we need him to hold. I love him so much. Even more because Peter spent hours on the phone with a woman in Los Angeles with a very heavy Italian accent, just trying to purchase and get him here. (I know that man, I know his limit and I'm sure he may have reached it and kept going that day, and that, my friends, is SPEC-IAL. Just glad I wasn't there.)

I fully expect to see this in Emma's first apartment one day (IF I'm ready to pass him along by then, I may just keep him).

i can finally let the cat out of the bag

I have kept a secret from you lovely folks, and I'm sorry about that. I've been hinting at a large amount of work that was keeping me busy and big deadlines I was working towards during the second half of 2011. I spent the better part of each day in my studio, my days starting once the kids were delivered to school, and some days not finishing until they were sound asleep.

I wrote a book.

With homemade scribbly spreadsheets and sometimes impossible deadlines on the calendar, I worked together with Jane Armstrong and Xiaonan Wang of Armstrong/Pitts Studios and Our Little Book Company to create a book of projects and a body of work that I truly love. We have been scheming, styling, and photographing. This book is about the very heart of what I love to do and love to share with you here on the blog. Its about turning a house into a home. Its about filling that home with keepsakes and momentos that hold meaning to those that live there. About surrounding yourself with handmade things that tell your story. There's something for everyone, and it gets to the heart of what I love about my own handmade world. Its found, repurposed, salvaged, and redone.

I cannot spell out all the details of when and where this will be available for you to buy, but I will. Soon.

Actually I'll probably scream it.

The book has the working title of wise craft right now. I have no idea what the final title will be. In the meantime, here's a little video that was filmed late last year by Scott Pitts, also of Armstrong/Pitts Studios.

 

Our Little Book Company: Wise Craft from Our Little Book Company on Vimeo.

When I began this blog back in 2005, I was a stay-at-home mom with 2 small kids who liked to make things. Plain and simple. I thought that creating an online space seemed interesting, maybe could help me remember some of those moments that seemed to go by in a flash, and it could be a place where I could keep track of all the things I made. You out there, read and commented. As the years have progressed, wise craft has become so much more than just an online space. You are friends. This space is my happy, creative home. Your presence here has encouraged me to continue doing what I so dearly love... making, sewing, knitting, crocheting, creating a home for our family. There is much more to come, and I thank you for sharing this space with me.

Love, Blair